Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, took off from a Texas launch pad for its third test flight.SpaceX's "Starship" rocket took off from the company's base in Texas Thursday, aiming for a successful test flight after the previous two ended with explosions.

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Starship, the largest rocket system ever built, is important in NASA's plans to land astronauts on the moon later this decade and for Tesla billionaire Elon Musk's hopes of eventually colonizing Mars.

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A live SpaceX webcast of the liftoff showed the rocketship rising from the launch tower.

Starship consists of a roughly 70-meter-long (230-foot) booster called Super Heavy and a 50-meter-long upper stage, also called Starship

The company tweeted a video as the rocket ignited its engines for "hot staging separation" far above the Earth.

The system has been developed to allow both the spacecraft and rocket to be reused after they return to Earth. Starship should be able to carry well over 100 tons of cargo in future launches.

More to come...

rc/wr (AFP, dpa)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 14, 2024 07:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).